Rosemary DeCamp : Tigers in My Lap

By Rosemary DeCamp

Actress Rosemary DeCamp writes with wit and charm of her life and work in films and television in her delightful autobiography. Fans of radio, film and television will not be able to put down this engaging work by one of Hollywood's consummate professionals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Mar 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386339489

Book preview

Introduction

My mother’s face was melting like wax, her mouth in a downturned smile. Her eyes were closed and from somewhere inside her an awful oh…oh…oh… tolled the end of my secure world.

I was seven and had seen her sniff and turn away from me before, but it had been a game. My next move was always, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Then she would use her handkerchief or put her hands over her eyes. I would offer another olive branch of remorse, and so on, until the drill concluded with a mild sentence or probation.

This was different.

My father, handsome in his officer’s cap and uniform, had boarded the train in Phoenix and departed for World War I, leaving my mother and me with no home and little means.

I whispered, Don’t cry, Mom. But she wasn’t listening. Then I knew the fear that comes when Authority crumbles — when there is no one left to DECIDE.

That phrase, Don’t cry, Mom has marked every high or low point in my private world, as well as in my 50-year career as an actor, and that is odd, because it is a sad phrase. Yet my life has been joyful, and lucky, full of mischief and laughter.

Soon after my first experience in films I became a professional Mother-Weeper — cheerful but ready with tears on cue for my lost son Sabu, lashed and chained to a temple in Jungle Book, and grew dewy-eyed over my handsome son, Ronald Reagan, in This is the Army. I doubt there was much weeping over son James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. We were all too busy dancing and dubbing and trying to match Jimmy’s genius. I wept for son Robert Alda, who played Gershwin so well in Rhapsody in Blue, although it was because of our director’s cruelty. Often he put Robert through 30 takes and then yelled, Print One. Hold 29!

Dwayne Hickman was my favorite son for five-and-a-half years on The Bob Cummings Show. He gave us few tears, howls of laughter, and minor exasperation.

The daughters for whom I sighed and cried professionally were beautiful and beloved worldwide — Ann Blyth, June Haver, Doris Day, Marlo Thomas, and Shirley Jones.

These were a few of my film children. I’ll tell you more about them later.

The casting directors saw me as a Reality and Reality became Mother. What is Mother? She is comforting, dependable, loyal (similar to a Boy Scout), and she becomes misty-eyed, or even sobs aloud over her famous son or daughter who is a) in danger, or b) performing magnificently on the stage, or c) in trouble with the kid next door.

But in the Reality of my own life, I was the Child whispering, Don’t cry, Mom when my mother prayed me back from death in the flu epidemic of 1918, when I was caught stealing in grammar school, when I left home on my wedding night, or finally when my mother wept silently as she lay dying of cancer.

Then we changed places. I became Mother and came home to find our youngest child had crashed through a glass door. I couldn’t move, or lift the bloody sheet that covered her until she said, Don’t cry, Mom.

Before the wedding of our third daughter to her childhood friend, confined to a wheelchair, she hugged me and said, Now, Mom, you’re not going to cry. When our lovely second daughter got her divorce, she kissed me and said, Don’t cry, Mom. Be happy for me.

Then when our first daughter gave birth to our grandson, she laughed and said, Cut the tears, Mom. He’s beautiful!

All those times and places, and the famous faces fit the same old phrase, which I suppose just means, Cheer up! I love you.

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As the mother of George Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue (1945).

Chapter 1

I Lose My Ranch, and an Enemy

Look out! Look out for my house!

Hey you! Stop!

The two big mules were thundering down on my fence — my house — my trees! The man on the wagon was laughing and whipping the mules. He just kept right on coming and made a big turn so his wheels smashed my cabin flat, tore up my fence, and wheeled off in a big cloud of dust toward the barn.

The little log cabin can was squashed tin. My matchstick fences were all gone. My hollyhock lady was just a dead flower and broken toothpicks.

I ran into the house where Auntie Axford was at the window. It was so nice to cry on her softness. She put her arms around me and laid her cheek on my forehead.

I saw it, dear. That’s too bad. He’s an ornery old muleskinner. Now don’t be sad. We’ll make a new ranch tomorrow. I’ve got a little cracker box for the house…

But the log cabin had a chimney and windows!

Don’t you fret. We’ll get another one when we go to town.

Her cheeks were downy. Her eyes swimmy and blue. Best of all I loved her mouth. It was like a rabbit’s…always tucked up sweetly…about to smile. At noon we had a hot meal because Uncle Axford came back from the mill hungry. Today we had my favorite dish…homegrown butter lettuce wilted with hot vinegar, bacon grease and pepper. While I was slurping it up, Auntie was automatically wiping my chin and telling her husband about the teamster and his whirl around her back yard.

Uncle Axford chewed slowly, looking out the dining room window toward the mill. I’d heard my dad say that Old Ax could tell what gauge the ore was being ground by the dust that came up from the bins.

He always ate in his underwear and suspenders to keep his shirt fresh for the afternoon shift. When he had chewed a while he said, That man’s mean. He beats his mules for fun, and he don’t get along with his road crew. But he’ll be gone in a coupla days. They’ve about got the culvert in down in the gully.

Auntie sniffed, The Postmistress at Mayer says he’s drunk there ’most every night.

Ax patted her hand. Now, Dottie, don’t you believe everything you hear on our 10-party line.

Ahhh, so they didn’t like him either!

When it got cooler I went over to the chicken house with my basket to gather up the eggs.

The muleskinner’s tent was a canvas lean-to by the barn. His wagon and mules were gone so he must have left for town.

I stuck my head through the flaps and was surprised. Everything was so neat: shirts and overalls folded, boots by the bed. His bed had a smooth canvas cover folded over the pillow.

He must have lain down after he made the bed because there was this little round hollow right in the middle of the pillow. When I saw that, I knew what to do.

The hens were almost friendly because Auntie Axford let me get the eggs every day when I visited her. They squawked and beat their wings a lot, but didn’t seem to mind me taking all I could reach. Today there were 15.

I circled around back of the barn so no one would see me go in the tent. It was scary. The place smelled funny…leather and canvas and hay…but sour, too. I kept thinking of his mean eyes and the whip he always carried.

But I pulled back the canvas cover. Ugh! The pillow was dirty and greasy…just ticking, no case. I broke three eggs into that little hollow, then laid the canvas back over them very gently. I didn’t know what to do with the shells but his boots were right there so I stuffed ’em down in the toes.

Back in the house I put the other eggs in the cooler. I knew I had to tell Auntie, but she was playing the piano. Every afternoon she played the piano. It was pretty, but sad, because she sat so she could see the pictures of her two little girls on the wall above the old upright.

Maybe they had played, too. My mother said they had died of typhoid years ago, but Auntie never mentioned them at all. I wished she would tell me their names and how old they were.

When she was at the piano I didn’t talk or move around because it was like she was visiting with them.

Her hands were beautiful even with all the scrubbing and planting she had to do, but some of the skin was white and some of it coffee colored. When I first came she noticed me staring, and said, Don’t worry about my hands. They really are clean. This is just some kind of nervous thing that makes them spotty. She finished an old song called Aura Lee, closed her eyes for a moment and then whirled around on the stool and gave me a nice soft hug.

Where’s you been? Your forehead’s all wet, and your eyes are too big!

I felt hot and guilty. Auntie, I borrowed three eggs. There’s still 12 left.

She waited. I looked away.

Is it a secret? I nodded. She laughed. I love surprises. Do you think I’ll be surprised?

She was so dear to me…her eyes shining that way. But if I told her, she might go clean up the mess and spoil my revenge. I sidled out of the room mumbling that she might know tomorrow.

All evening I dodged her eyes, building card houses and playing in her button bag. Finally I went to bed without being told. She felt my head and threatened castor oil if I didn’t cheer up.

In the middle of the night there was a lot of shouting, banging, and swearing. I heard Uncle Alex get up and look out the kitchen window. Then we went back into the bedroom. Pretty soon Auntie said, On no! Don’t! He’s just drunk. But Uncle was on his way to the door saying, I’ve got to be sure he doesn’t set fire to anything.

I lay there with my teeth chattering. He’d taken his old shotgun with him! And fire! What if I caused the whole place to burn up? Why had I done it? My dearest friends, and they were coming to harm because of me!

The yelling stopped. Uncle Ax was talking. The teamster was arguing. Then everything got quiet. I heard Uncle come back, put out the light and close his door.

I finally fell asleep with bad dreams of mules and giant chickens and eggs that spilled fire.

At breakfast the next morning I mentioned casually that I had been out for a walk and, by the way, the teamster and his rig were gone.

Uncle Ax looked at me gravely. Behind his glasses his eyes were bright. "Is that a fact?’

He took a mouthful of hot cakes and then said, That fellow had some pretty bad luck. After pausing for his wife’s reaction, he continued, Seems one of our hens laid a little omelet in his bed last night. No wonder he packed up ’n left.

Auntie Axford looked startled, and then at me. She smiled and gave a little throaty chuckle. Land sakes, yes! That’s enough to drive any man away!

I relaxed. They weren’t going to beat this subject to death; they would not moan about childish pranks. I was among civilized people. We were adults together.

Hurray! It was a new day and time to build me a bigger and better ranch.

Chapter 2

First Movie — First Costume

The first movie I ever saw was a part of a serial starring Art Accord. He wore a coonskin cap and his eyes were very light. They weren’t exactly crossed but they didn’t always look in the same direction. He was brave and wonderful. After that first matinee, I schemed to go as often as possible.

As I was only five years old, it took a lot of persuading. The Lyric, in the little town of Mayer, Arizona, was the only movie house for 50 miles around. First I had to get someone to take me to Blue Bell Siding, three miles from Dad’s mine, the Blue Bell. Then I had to coax my Aunt and Uncle Axford to get out their buckboard and hitch up old Minnie, the horse, dress for town, pack a lunch, and then plod four miles over rough roads to The Lyric.

If we missed the 1:30 p.m. beginning, it was tough to figure out how Art Accord had gotten out of last week’s cliffhanger because there was just one show. But never mind, it was heaven to be sitting on Uncle’s lap, holding Minnie’s reins and clop-clopping toward high adventure with my pale-eyed hero. Several times I went to a movie at night with my parents. But it was not as much fun for two reasons.

The audiences consisted of grown-ups and were, therefore, taller, so I couldn’t see very well. Also, my father invented a form of censorship I found disgusting.

When the hero and heroine became amorous or even just close-up friendly, he would hold his old Stetson hat over my face.

So dumb! I was scared someone I knew would see.

Besides, his hat smelled of leather and sweat. It had a little ring of holes in the middle of the crown, but there was no use trying to see through them. If I squirmed too much, or if the picture bored him, he would take me out to the lobby where there was a soda fountain.

I remember looking back at the movie once when he was pulling me up the aisle. I think the star was Mary Miles Minter. The hero had his arms around her, and they were slowly sinking to the ground. Suddenly the scene switched to two flowers bending toward each other. It looked SO PHONY! Even I could see the flowers were pulled by threads.

As those two flowers nuzzled and smooched, Dad grabbed me firmly by the arm and said, That stuff is not for you.

How right he was. I already knew you had to have bees; and flowers don’t kiss each other.

My family background included fragments of legend concerning Guillaume Francoise Dechamps, a red-bearded giant who crossed over from Quebec to Michigan on the Grande Traverse. Years later in Wisconsin, he Americanized his name to DeCamp. He married Sadie Campbell, an Irish girl in Bodie, California, when it was a roaring gold camp. Sadie was still so pretty at 90, I suspect she was a dance hall girl — specious logic perhaps, but what was she doing in Bodie? Later, old Red Beard narrowly missed being hanged by the Mexican Bandit, Pancho Villa.

The Hinmans, my mother’s people, were bright and progressive: One was a founder of Northwestern University, and another invented the dial telephone. They later had a daughter who became a vice-president of McGraw Hill. Both sides of my family lacked even normal acquisitiveness and willed my brother and me only curiosity and health.

But the dial phone, Northwestern University, and McGraw-Hill were a long way from the Blue Bell Mine, deep in the mountains of Arizona circa 1915. My father, Val DeCamp, was Superintendent, head man of the mining camp — population 405.

Everything we ate or used came past our front porch on a tram line in big iron buckets. I remember my mother groaning when she’d see the ice go by, dripping out of its gunny sack cover. If it was a 500-pound cake when it left the railroad siding, it would be 50 pounds when we got it. Then it had to be split with the boarding house next door.

The Sears-Roebuck catalogue was our department store. We ordered all our clothing, utensils, bedding, even furniture from it. The goods came by train to the end of the railroad and then over to us on the tram buckets.

When I was six I longed to be an Indian Chief. In the Sears catalogue there was a complete suit and feather war bonnet, $7.98 prepaid. The picture was beautiful. It looked like the drawings from Hiawatha. The feathers went around the hat and down the back. Most of the orders were C.O.D., but this costume had to be paid for in advance. They must have feared we’d muss the feathers if we sent it back.

Finally the Indian suit arrived. It was a dream come true, my first costume! The feathers were all colors, and the tacky khaki was embroidered with fake beads. It fit fine, only the pants were long for me; I was short for my age.

As soon as I put it on, I was somebody else. I was a great Chief. A Great Chief in Search of My People!

While mother was absorbed in her packages I skipped out the back door to a trail that led over the mountains away from the tram line. My People wouldn’t be near a tram line.

The sun was hot and two or three hours later I felt very lost. Cactus was everywhere, big and little, and under my knees when I stumbled. I had climbed up and down gullies, over rocks, and had seen lizards and snakes and prairie dogs, but none of My People. There didn’t seem to be any water, or even any shade. I sat on a rock, too tired to worry about rattlers. The cicadas made a buzzing hum that hurt my head and seemed to bore right into my ears.

When I woke up, there was somebody watching me. It was a real Indian — no feathers. He was sitting on an old white horse. His clothes were beat-up Levis, no shirt, a vest, a necktie, and a greasy black fedora. I looked at him. He smiled, showing brown teeth in a brown face.

No…well, a little.

Yeah…you from the mine. Come on. I take you home.

He turned the horse, got off then beckoned to me.

This was embarrassing, but better than stumbling along behind. He put me up on the dirty blanket that covered the horse’s back. Then he took the reins and we started for home. I wondered why we couldn’t both ride. The horse was very old and bony — maybe it couldn’t carry two.

When we arrived at the mine, there had been some concern. In the language of the corral, my mother was fit to be tied. Dad rewarded the Indian. Mother snatched my suit and hat, all the while wailing and crying, Don’t you ever…ever…ever again!

It was all really overdone and unfair. After all, I had found My People. No use to make such a flap.

Mother was my only teacher until I was eight, and a good one. At least, she had me reading novels when I was six. After the Indian suit episode, she leaned rather heavily on What is REAL? and What is MAKE BELIEVE? She was firm about it, and I am grateful, although I must admit I still have philosophical doubts about which is which. I have seen several actresses and actors get caught in the romantic morass of a role, or a series of parts, and never quite make it back to solid ground.

As a mother she gets A for not promoting the Big Santa Claus Myth. She refused to be trapped, and always said, with a twinkle in her electric-blue eyes, He is The Spirit of Christmas. She knew that the impact of whatever is read to us in nursery years is greater than we realize. By we, I mean the reader or readee. My mother seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of Mother Goose, Aesop’s Fables and Grimm’s Fairy Tales around, and she read well — dramatically. For me she populated the world with lost children, mysterious forests, and wolves. The Wolf was the big enemy in my fantasies — the one who waylaid Little Red Riding Hood for instance. Also, Aesop had a lot to say about them and none of it good. But the one who was outsmarted by the Third Little Pig made the deepest impression on me. He was so successful and so tricky that only a very diligent and thoughtful little pig could survive. The message was clear: They are out there. They will GET YOU unless you best them by getting up early, and THINKING AHEAD!

It took me a lot of years to realize that’s why I am not on time, but always EARLY — not optimistic about any project without an uncomfortable amount of planning, and a nag about my appointments and everyone else’s.

Mother said these compulsions were inherited from Grandpa DeCamp who packed his lunch and left early just to say good-bye at the train station. But I know it’s the Wolves out there waiting for me to be late, or make some dumb move.

Meanwhile, another danger lurked for all of us. The day my father got his commission, and orders to report for World War I, any security we had vanished abruptly.

Our phone was a 10-party line, and I can still see his face, young and excited. He jiggled the receiver hook and shouted, I can’t hear! Some of you folks get off the line, will you?? I’ve got to get this right…Yeah…Phoenix before the 10th…Right…First lieutenant…Engineers…Got it!

He turned away from the phone, saw my mother’s face and wiped his grin. I don’t think he had told her he was going. They talked late that night, and once I thought I heard her crying.

It was puzzling. My father was going away but what for? The war didn’t mean much to me, except that the Kaiser’s picture was on a roll of toilet paper in our bathroom. I knew we were supposed to hate him, which was easy with his spiked helmet and the weird mustache.

Besides, because of him, old mustachio, we were going to have to leave our home, and no one would tell me where we were going.

That paranoid face came back to haunt me years later when I was in Munich in 1930 with a group of students. We attended a dance program called 1918 performed by Martha Graham and her company. They used sirens, gunfire, recorded explosions, and a strange greenish light that wandered over dozens of writhing figures. The ushers wore German helmets and skull masks. I sat through it as long as I could and then stumbled out in the hall, faint and nauseated, feeling gassed by the mustard light. I could smell death in the cordite fumes, but maybe it was a presentiment of horror for the future as well as the past. Munich seemed to be a suppurating sore of war memories — of hate and death, where almost every shop sold tourists the city’s official symbol — little silver skulls.

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Four generations: My great-grandmother (left), my mother Margaret Elizabeth Hinman (center), Effie Houck my grandmother, and me.

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Posing in my bonnet in 1913.

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William Val DeCamp in his early 20s, c. 1905.

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My mother, called JoJo, in her early 20s, c. 1905.

Chapter 3

Moving

We had so few possessions, leaving the Blue Bell Mine just meant putting three boxes in the tram buckets and watching them wing off over the mountains to some vague storage. Our suitcases went into the Oldsmobile, the only thing of value my parents owned.

It was black with a cloth top, yellow wire wheels bracketed by wide running boards. I hated it because I always had to sit in the back behind Mother. Sitting behind Father was out of the question, because he would lean out and spit, and the wind would carry it back to my face. (The wind, indeed! I don’t think we averaged 20 miles an hour as the roads were rutty paths, the tires were bicycle size and hard as rocks.)

My father was impatient with any signs of illness. Mother and I were constantly car-sick, and so was our old Pit bulldog, named Beefeater. When we had to stop, and urp, Mother would hold my head when she was through, then I would hold Beefeater’s head while Dad marched up and down muttering. Then he would swing into the driver’s seat and squeeze the big rubber horn.

But this ride was quiet. Dad concealed his happy anticipation of army life, while Mother used her handkerchief a lot, and was silent.

She always managed to shed a few tears for each scruffy boarding house, or company cabin, we left. I don’t remember having any regrets. We always moved. We had no home. Packing and moving was usual, though this time I knew that Mother was not only sad, but worried. I had heard them talking about the savings and selling the car in Phoenix, so this departure was different. It was more final.

When we reached the Blue Bell Siding, Aunt and Uncle Axford were dressed up, and standing on their little wooden porch — a solemn sign, because it was nine in the morning and Ax belonged at the mill.

I climbed over the side and ran to Auntie’s loving softness. She smelled of lemon verbena, and her eyes were pink from crying. But she laughed and said, Come on in! I made cinnamon rolls. You’ve got to stop a minute!

Dad finally got out of the car and followed Mother. Uncle Ax looked at Dad and